


tastes so sweet, looks so real

by boeser



Category: Hockey RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - Not Hockey Player(s), Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Angst, Friends to Lovers, Lots of it, M/M, Major Character Injury, Pining, Summer, this was very self indulgent and I'm not sorry thank you
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-04
Updated: 2017-09-04
Packaged: 2018-12-23 17:31:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,973
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11994597
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/boeser/pseuds/boeser
Summary: It’s like a gentle reminder of: I’m here, I’m with you, this is not a dream even if you have already dreamt this.Nate thinks, I’ve been here before.





	tastes so sweet, looks so real

**Author's Note:**

> hey if you or anyone you know is in this please stop here or this will be very embarrassing for everyone involved. thank you
> 
> title from two ghosts by harry styles
> 
> also i don't read anything over so srry if some lines are like dumb lol go big or go home!
> 
> pls see end notes for trigger warnings!
> 
> anyway here's wonderwall

Nate trips over Mikey’s shoes when he walks through the door. He curses under his breath, steadying himself. He hates when Mikey leaves his shoes in the doorway.

“I hate when you leave your shoes in the doorway,” Nate calls out to the kitchen, where he knows Mikey will be. It’s nearing seven—time for Mikey’s pre-Jeopardy Gogurt. He can hear the starts of the slurping from the foyer. 

Nate lines up Mikey’s shoes against the wall under the coat rack and smiles to himself. Wow, you are so great, Nathan, he thinks, Mikey is so lucky to have a considerate, patient, fiancee like you.

“Whablehrgergegheh!” Nate hears, which. What.

“What?”

There’s a pause.

“What I do with my shoes is no one of your business!”

Nate rolls his eyes even if Mikey can’t see him and takes off his jacket, hanging it on the rack because he wasn’t raised in the jungle. He’s a lawyer at Norton Rose, one of the top law firms in Canada. It pays nicely, as one can tell, because they have things like coasters and salad forks. Even if neither of them eat salad. Nate loves the coasters, though.

Mikey works at Buzzfeed. Nate’s favorite article that he’s written is Top 10 Times Spongebob was too Woke for Us and it’s just pictures of a sleep deprived Spongebob. It’s one of his early articles, when he was climbing through the ranks, so he hates when Nate brings it up. Now Mikey gets to talk about real stuff, like debating which Juul pod offers the most bang for its buck. At least he gets paid, Nate thinks.

 

*

 

Mikey hides the box in one of his shoes after he got home from work, and leaves them in the hallway. When Nate gets home from doing awesome things like making a woman cry because he had to liquidate her assets, he gets tripped up by Mikey’s shoes in his way, like clockwork. Nate’s already keyed up, and it doesn’t help that Mikey is standing in the hallway like an idiot, with an idiotic smile on his face. 

Nate is prepared to storm past him, but Mikey stands his ground.

“What?” Nate nearly screams.

Mikey’s smile doesn’t waver. “Pick up my shoes.”

Nate stares at him, blankly. “Pick up your own fucking shoes.” He has no idea what was going on. “You’re literally right there. What the fuck.”

“Come on, just do it.” Mikey laughs in Nate’s face because he’s the devil.

“I’m gonna move your ugly shoes, then I’m gonna throw something at you.”

Nate obliges, bending down to move Mikey’s shoes to the designated shoe area that Mikey never fails to ignore, when he sees the box. A small, square box inside of Mikey’s ugly, gross, smelly shoe.

“You fuck,” Nate says aloud, mostly for himself. He looks up at Mikey, who makes a face, pursing his lips.

“You didn’t even open it.”

Nate opens the box and places the ring on his index finger, just to make Mikey mad. He throws the now empty box at Mikey, who guffaws. Nate has never seen someone guffaw in like, real life before.

“You are literally crazy!” Mikey yelled, placing his hand over his clavicle. Nate guesses it hit him there. “I just proposed!”

“I told you I was gonna throw something at you.” Nate put on his best leer. “And next time pick up your own goddamn shoes!”

 

*

 

Nate remembers his twenty first birthday, almost like it was yesterday. He remembers the calmness in his chest, a familiar weight settling into his bones. Home, his impression was.

On a person’s twenty first birthday, they get an impression of their soulmate. It only last for a few seconds at most, the longest rumored to be around thirty, but that hasn’t been proven. He woke up with the taste of Gogurt in his mouth, and no matter how hard he brushed his tongue, it lingered for days.

No one knows how it works. Soulmate indications change unpredictably, like a virus, manipulating itself to survive. The first recorded indication was a red line around a wrist when someone first fell in love. The most recent prior to the impression was the first words a soulmate said to a person after their nineteenth birthday, tattooed on the body since birth. 

The whole impression thing has been going steady for over seventy years, and Nate likes it. He would rather have his breath smell like cotton candy Gogurt for a few days than have the first thing Mikey said to him after he turned nineteen permanently written on his body, like, forever. And if someone is really curious, it was: Hey, that bruise on your ass kinda looks like a didgeridoo. 

Granted, Mikey was hungover as shit and it was the first coherent thing he said that night, but Nate shivers at the thought. He doesn’t even know what a didgeridoo is. 

He walks into the kitchen to see three flattened gogurts resting on top of the marble counter, Mikey working on his fourth. He’s shirtless, wearing a pair of Nate’s sweatpants that hang low on his hips. He’s humming some old Kesha song beneath his breath while fucking around on his phone, and Nate hates that he knows the words.

“What are you looking at?” Nate starts. “Oh wait— I know. Fifteen Hedgehogs with Things that Look like Hedgehogs.”

Mikey finishes slurping, sliding his index and thumb up the packet, making eye contact the entire time. Nate doesn’t know if it’s meant to be sexy or creepy. 

“I don’t know why I like you.” Mikey slides all four of the empty Gogurts off the counter and into the trash can. 

“Well I know why I like you.” Nate decides to demonstrate by reaching over to slap Mikey’s ass, who yelps and bucks up, and ends up hitting his hips on the counter. He recovers quickly, though, leaning onto the counter with his elbow, chin in his the palm of his hand. Mikey flutters his eyelashes prettily, and Nate grimaces in response.

“Aw, you think I’m hot,” Mikey coos.

Nate bristles, “Mikey, we’re soulmates.”

“Still,” Mikey continues. He walks up to Nate, bracing a hand against his chest. Nate thinks he’s going in for a kiss, but Mikey reaches behind him and Nate can hear the distinct sound of the fridge opening. 

“I know why I like you,” Mikey explains. “You support my Gogurt habits.”

Nate laughs loudly, the sound coming from deep in his chest, and his cheek hurts from the stretch. He thinks he’s going to kiss Mikey for real this time, so he cradles Mikey’s jaw, and-

 

*

 

He wakes up.

 

*

When he first comes to, he is grated by how bad his mouth tastes. It feels like sandpaper, his tongue feeling raw and foreign in its own territory. Then, he feels his fingers twitch and— this bed doesn’t feel like his, doesn’t feel like Mikey’s, either. It’s too firm and too small, and he feels trapped.

Then he hears the beeping.

It’s in constant intervals, high pitched, and incessant. Beep. Beep. Beep. He breathes. Beep. Beep. Beep.

“Oh, Nathan,” a voice says, and is that. Is that his mom? He feels a hand run through his hair, and he leans into it, like a reflex. Something wet drops onto his forehead. “Nathan, please.”

He opens his eyes. He sees the lights.

 

*

 

They tell him he was in an accident, but when they go into detail, it sounds like he was dicking around with Mikey and managed to fall into a coma. Classic.

Apparently, he was climbing out of Mikey’s window while it was raining, slipped, and fell. It could’ve been worse, the doctors tell him.

“How long have I been out?” Nate asks, and he realizes it’s the first time he’s spoken since he woke up, which was- time check- thirteen minutes ago. His voice is scratchy and his throat hurts. His mom offers him water.

“Not long,” his dad supplies. “A couple of days.”

“Three weeks,” Maddie says, and the entire room groans. Nate thinks that if his brain didn't feel like a bowl of ramen, he’d do a spit take.

Huh.

At least she’s honest.

 

*

 

Nate learns that he has- well, had a concussion. He has probably slept it off. He also had two broken ribs (also healed) and his vision’s shit which kind of sucks but he’ll like, get over it. Eventually. 

He’s been awake for twenty minutes now, and his sister is filling him in on all the things he’s missed, and something feels off. She’s talking about lacrosse games and tailgates, but Nate couldn’t care less. He stopped caring the second he like, started dedicating his time to more important things like… having a job?

He starts zoning out when he brings a hand to his face to scratch his nose and God, that feels so good when- when. Where’s his ring?

“Where’s my ring?”

Maddie stops and stares at him, tilting her head. There’s a slight smile on her face, like she can’t believe he’s that stupid. “What?”

“My ring,” he repeats. “My engagement ring.”

His parents decide that’s the perfect time to start paying attention to him again, as if they weren’t fawning over him since he woke up, and his mom’s laughter rings throughout the room, light and airy. 

“You don’t— you’re not— why would you have an engagement ring?” She strokes his cheek, before pulling at it. He swats her hand away.

“Because I’m pawning it to get Leafs tickets.” Nate pauses for the resounding laughter that never comes. “Because I’m engaged. Why else would I have a fucking-”

“Language.”

“Freaking,” he begrudgingly corrects. “Engagement ring. Because I have a fiance, who I am going to marry, who proposed to me, which is why I’m engaged, in case the concept is too wild for you all to understand.”

The room is silent, before:

“You’re awfully sassy for a person that was in a coma for twenty two days.”

“Maddie,” his father chastises, and she just shrugs and picks at her nails.

“Nate, you’re not engaged, you’re eighteen.” Nate looks up at his mom, and she’s just staring, but he knows there’s a smile in their somewhere. “Your impression is years away. If there was anyone you’d be engaged to, it’d be Mikey.”

“That’s because my fiancé is Mikey,” Nate reasons, and his mom just laughs. “He's my soulmate.”

The ever present smile turns into a grimace when she registers his exasperated expression. 

“Oh.” 

Oh.

She takes her hand off of his face and turns to his father. “David, please call the doctors.”

 

*

 

The doctors run multiple tests on him. They pick and prod at his body, shine lights in his eyes, take him for MRI scans. Nate feels fine, if you don’t account for the minor throb on his left temple and the discomfort in his chest when he attempts to eat applesauce. 

It’s just- he feels too much. He knows he’s eighteen, but he also feels twenty eight, and it’s like his body is in a tug of war with itself. He knows he’s here, sitting in a hospital bed because he fell out of Mikey’s goddamn window, but he also feels ten years older, like there’s a phantom weight where his engagement ring should be.

Dr. Hartman is a middle aged lady with curly black hair and sharp eyes. She’s chewing gum, which Nate thinks is entirely unprofessional, but hey. She could’ve let him die an idiot. She comes in with a clipboard and a neutral expression, so Nate doesn’t think his prognosis is that bad. 

“Hi, sorry to keep you all waiting, Jared from Hematology dropped seven pints of blood in the hallway, so.” She shrugs as if that is normal news. It is not normal news. 

“Wait, like this hallway?” Maddie asks, because of course she has to.

Dr. Hartman eyes her, lips curling. “Um, yes.”

“Is it cleaned up?”

“Not yet… it’s seven pints of blood.”

“Cool.” Maddie gets up from her spot in the chair in the corner, shoving her phone in the back pocket of her jeans. “I’ll be back.”

The entire room watches her as she leaves silently, the only sound coming from Dr. Hartman’s gum. The doctor turns to face Nate again, a different glint in her eye. She probably thinks Nate is as much of a basket case as Maddie, which is false- because he’s a bigger basket case. He never comes second in anything.

“The good news is that nothing’s wrong with you,” Dr. Hartman begins. He can hear his parents’ relieved sighs, and Dr. Hartman’s a fucking G. “But everything’s not completely right, either.”

Hm. Not a fucking G.

“Your memory is fine, Nathan, don’t worry about that. You remember too much, if anything. ”

Nate furrows his eyebrows because what the fuck does that even mean?

“Is it actually possible for him to have… extra memories, or whatever is going on?”

Dr. Hartman shrugs carelessly, and her G factor is going down exponentially. “I mean, we have inexplicable soulmates. Nothing is really out of the realm of possibility.”

His mother pales.

“I should rephrase myself.” Dr. Hartman pauses. “I don’t think Nathan actually has these memories; I think his brain stimulated itself and created these fallacies after being dormant for such a long time, and because these dreams were the only stimulations the brain was receiving, they were very vivid and life-like, so the line between reality and fantasy is distorted.” Nate doesn’t feel fine anymore. “But who knows.”

“You should,” his father says. “You’re the doctor.”

Dr Hartman shrugs. “Semantics.”

Nate doesn’t know what to believe. He knows what happened in his head is real, even if he doesn’t understand how. He doesn’t remember everything- that would be too much. His memories are in flashes, quick and fleeting. He sees Mikey sitting on a nondescript kitchen counter, Mikey laughing on a bike, Mikey hunched over a laptop, Mikey drooling on his bed, Mikey standing in a hallway, Mikey, Mikey, Mikey.

All Nate knows is Mikey. All he will ever know is Mikey.

And it seems kind of cruel to him, that he was on the brink of something beautiful, and fell too far. But Nate also knows that though soulmates are inexplicable, they’re reliable. You can always count on your impression to sit deep in your bones. What’s happening to him is nothing like that. It’s a calamity.

“What should I do?” Nate asks. 

“You don’t have to do anything. As I stated previously, there is nothing actually wrong with you. The line between reality and fantasy is distorted, but it’s still there. You know the difference, it’s up to you whether you want to acknowledge it or not.”

It’s official. Dr Hartman is, in fact, not a fucking G. 

She’s Satan’s favorite apprentice.

 

*

 

Nate gets to go him a day later, which is fucking baller because the hospital bed seriously sucked. He knew there was a remote to change the settings somewhere, but laying motionless for three weeks really did a number on his motor skills. He walks a little funny and his head feels heavy, but nothing anyone sees if they aren’t looking.

His parents set him up to sleep in the living room for his first night back, in fear that their winding marble staircase might be too much for his ramen brain to handle. He’s not allowed to watch TV or read (like he’d do that anyway), so he just lays down and closes his eyes, waiting for dinner. It’s summer, and he has nothing else to do. Well, he had a job for three whole days before he was comafied. 

He wonders if he was paid on medical leave.

Nate can feel his cat, Billy (short for Billiam), nudge her head against the arm thrown off the edge of the couch. He hears her purr as he lightly scratches her hair, and it isn’t long before she jumps onto the armrest and curls into a ball above his head. He remembers coming up with the name three years ago, thinking it was the funniest shit ever, after claiming that Mikey was short for Mikathan. Mikey wasn’t amused, but it still brings a smile onto Nate. 

Then the smile is gone, because. Where the hell is Mikey?

He’s been awake for over twenty four hours now, and he hasn’t seen him. He hasn’t even gotten a text and- even if Mikey isn’t his fiance or whatever, he’s supposed to be his friend. Friends see each other when the other is hurt.

He won’t ask his parents, because that’d be pathetic, and he won’t ask Maddie either, because that’d be even worse. So Nate settles on staring up at his ceiling, wondering what Mikey could possibly be doing instead of checking up on him. 

Option A: Mikey could also potentially be in a coma. That seems highly unlikely, because, well, he’s at least eighty percent sure his family would tell him. The other twenty percent is unaccounted for because of that time when Nate’s hamster died when he was seven, and instead of telling him, his parents bought a new one and replaced it before Nate could notice.

Option B: Mikey could be somewhere with no cell service. Like, camping in the woods or some shit, which would explain why he hadn’t received the news of Nate waking up and therefore couldn’t come to the hospital, call or even send a message. But Nate knows that Mikey is high maintenance and couldn’t go two hours without his phone. 

Option C: Mikey just… doesn’t care. Which is also unlikely, because, not to sound cocky or anything, but Nate knows he’s Mikey’s number one. His confidant, his best friend, his- his. All Nate knows is Mikey. All he ever wants to know is Mikey.

Billy purrs softly and places a paw on Nate’s forehead. He doesn’t dare move.

 

*

 

Nate guesses he falls asleep shortly after, because he’s being violently shaken awake. He opens his eyes and sees Maddie looming over him, arms crossed over her chest.

“Dinner’s ready, coma face.”

“What?” he asks, but she’s already walking towards the kitchen. Coma face, he mouths at her retreating figure, testing out the name.

He pads sleepily to the dining table, a plate of brisket, mashed potatoes, and vegetables awaiting for him. Maddie’s a pescatarian, so she has a bowl of pasta. She makes a point of staring down the beef in Nate’s meal as she walks to her seat, so Nate makes a point to scratch his ass and grab her fork by the tongs. 

“You inbred!” Maddie screams.

“That’s no way to talk to a comatose patient.” He sits down.

“You’re not even in a coma, you’re right there.”

“Says who?”

“Says common sense, which you and a million other people don’t have.”

“How common is common sense if a lot of people don’t have it?”

“Mom!” Maddie screams, which, ding ding ding. He wins.

 

*

 

Just because Mikey hasn’t contacted Nate doesn’t mean other people haven’t. In fact, he has over two thousand texts sitting in his messages. Half of them are from group chats with friends, though some people had the integrity to remove him after the accident, and the other five hundred is people sending him get well messages, and the other five hundred are people checking in on him from the last twenty four hours. 

He goes through his conversation with Mikey, and it hasn’t been updated since the day of the fall. Their last interaction goes something like this:

Nate (10:43): mikathan im outside ur house rn

Mikey (10:43): Stop calling me that

Mikey (10:43): I thought u said u were busy tonight

Nate (10:44): maddie fucked off with her friends so i dont have to babysit anymore

Mikey (10:44): Ok coooool good for you. Im busy rn. Come back in an hr

Nate (10:45): WTF

Nate (10:45): mikey.

Nate (10:46): please open ur window baby <3

Nate (10:47): mikey open ur window.

Nate (10:48): MICHAEL 

Nate (10:49): Mikey seriously its raining so fucking hard.

Nate (10:50): What the fuck are you doing

Nate (10:53): When I kick your dirty fucking window down, I hope I smell like wet dog

Nate (10:53): Ok Im coming up regardless thanks for being a bitch LOL

Nate (10:53): Hope ur jerk off sesh is worth a broken windwo

And it just… ends there. Nate forces himself to swallow, and it strikes him that these were his last moments and he doesn’t even remember them. When he first woke up, his mom told him everything, holding his hand so tightly, like she was afraid he was going to disappear on her again. 

She told him that he was supposed to be babysitting Maddie, but he let Maddie sneak out and walked over to Mikey’s house. Mikey was grounded so technically he wasn’t even supposed to be there, but Nate knows that has never stopped him. He was only there for a short period, around five minutes, and it was raining. Hard. So when Nate climbed down, he slipped on an awning, and fell one and a half stories. 

But that was his mom’s recall of the event. Not Nate’s. Who knows what was lost in translation?

Reading over their last conversation makes Nate anxious. What was Mikey doing? Nate would ask but Mikey isn’t being the most approachable person at the moment, and it’s kind of fucked up that Nate feels hesitant to reach out to his best friend. Option C is getting more and more likely the more Nate dwells on it, and his chest starts to tighten. He can feel the hairline fractures in his ribs. 

Everything hurts.

 

*

It’s been one week ‘PC’, post coma as Maddie dubbed it, and Nate has done jack shit. 

He’s allowed to watch TV now, so he caught up on all the episodes of Criminal Minds that he missed, he has attempted to walk Billy on four separate occasions, Maddie prodded him to go to a frozen yogurt place and at first he thought it was a nice gesture to get him out of the house, but he realized that it was just so she could flirt with the cashier guy.

He’s made vague plans with Alex but neither of them really follow through, and every time he works up the courage to reach out to someone else, he talks himself out of it. Well, if Mikey doesn’t want to talk to you, why would they?

He’s sighing pathetically into his pillow when it hits him, his mind goes white and then there’s a snapshot of Mikey laughing as Nate reaches for him, and it’s over before Nate even touches him. 

His mouth feels dry and he suddenly feels disoriented, like he doesn’t know where he is even though he’s lived in this one room his entire life. He feels half empty, waiting for something, anything, grasping for any piece of closure. What happens next?

But he knows what happens next. Kind of. They end up together, somehow, someway. It kind of sucks that he gets Mikey in another lifetime but not this one, but he’ll take it. He’ll settle.

He’s about to head downstairs to make his third PBJ for the day, when his phone starts buzzing. He glances at the caller ID. Alex.

“Hello?” he asks.

“Oh, so Maddie wasn’t lying when she said you’re alive.” Nate can’t even respond to that, and Alex continues based on Nate’s silence. “It’s just, she said you woke up, but no one has actually like, heard from you.”

Nate shuffles and repositions himself to sit against his headboard. “What does that even mean? I text you. I’ve texted everyone.”

“Yeah, but no one has like, heard from you. Like seen you. For all we know, it could’ve been Maddie fucking with us. Or a-” There’s a pause. “On second thought, I’m FaceTiming you. Just to be sure.”

Nate groans and Alex doesn’t leave room for argument, because before Nate even registers it, he’s receiving a Facetime request. He picks up.

Alex is in his backyard shirtless, presumably lounging by the pool. He has both a baseball cap and sunglasses on, so objectively he should look kind of stupid, but it works. Alex smiles when he sees Nate’s double chin, and he lets out a loud whoop.

“Just because you’re into conspiracy theories doesn’t mean everyone else is.”

“Aw, I missed your acne.”

“I don’t have acne anymore.” His face almost makes a frown. 

“Yeah, but I still miss it.” He sighs. “I really missed you too. Full homo.”

Nate rubs his face, shaking his head. “You don’t have to say full homo after everything.”

“You told me to stop saying no homo, so what else am I supposed to say? Half homo?”

“Or you could just say what you have to say without any homo after it, like a normal human being?”

There’s silence on Alex’s end, and when Nate looks at him, Alex is just staring at the screen, face blank. He can’t even tell what his eyes are doing because he’s wearing his stupid sunglasses, and he finally responds after a solid minute.

“You know, I’ve never thought of that.” God, is this really who he surrounds himself with? “I think I get a free pass today because you keep canceling on me.”

What? No he hasn’t.

“No I haven’t,” he says, knitting his eyebrows.

Alex makes a face. “Yes, you have. Every time I try to hang out you’re like, yeah, sure, but then you never follow up.”

“I thought we were, like, mutually doing that. Like when you want to hang out but like you don’t really wanna.”

“You don’t wanna hang out with me?”

Blood rushes to Nate’s cheeks, and he shrinks, trying to make himself smaller. Alex’s voice isn’t it’s usual mocking, general douchebag tone and he sounds moderately serious. Nate has done absolute jack shit, but now he also feels like a piece of shit. 

“Of course I do,” Nate says. “It’s just- things have been… weird. I didn’t think you’d want to.”

“Why wouldn’t I want to?”

Nate lifts a shoulder, and it would be a shrug if he had the energy to. “I don’t know. Mikey doesn’t wanna talk to me.”

“When was the last time you talked to him?”

“Like… a month ago?”

Alex just stares at him, long and hard until Nate starts to feel uncomfortable. Can he take off those fucking sunglasses? Nate can’t even tell where Alex is looking. 

“Are you saying that you guys haven’t talked since that night?” Alex asks, and his words are slow and drawn out, so Nate can kind of hear his accent. He’s talking to Nate like he’s a dumbass, which objectively he is, but he hasn’t done anything that he can think of that requires that sort of tone.

“That’s exactly what I’m saying.” He gets up and starts the trek downstairs. Nate can feel himself getting hungrier and hungrier, and he can hear the quiet grumbles in his stomach even if Alex can’t.

“Huh.” Alex looks thoughtful. He even strokes his chin. “Alright, I gotta go.”

“What?” Nate clambers off his bed. “No. What? I thought you wanted to speak to me. Like have a conversation.”

“I did and we did just that. Conversation over, Nater. Bye bye.”

“I don’t even—” and before Nate can refute, Alex’s face was gone from his screen and he’s left looking at his own reflection. 

Hm. 

Maybe his acne isn't completely gone. 

 

*

Nate texts Owen, who isn't a certified weirdo, and Nate ends up sitting cross legged in his basement playing NHL15 with Taylor’s dog, Astro, planted firmly on his feet. 

“So,” Owen drawls out, his voice slow and sickly. “How's life?”

Nate tries not to take his eyes off the screen to glare at him, and he nearly fails. “Life is… I mean, I’m alive, I guess?”

Nate can feel Owen glance at him through his peripheral vision, and he wonders what the fuck is so interesting about his face that Owen really can't help but stare. Is his acne that bad? How hasn't he ever noticed? 

“Cool,” Owen says, and that's the end of that conversation. 

 

*

 

Nate sees Mikey singing a Kesha song terribly, guiding Nate through a waltz in a spacious living room. They’re laughing and he can hear Alex Trebek’s voice faintly in the background. 

He yearns. 

 

**

 

The thing is, there's always been a thing. As in, Nate has always had a thing for Mikey. He didn't need a coma to figure that out. 

Mikey is the classic boy next door. He has a nice smile and helps old ladies cross the street, he dots his Is and crosses his Ts, he lets Nate eat ice cream out of the tub without reprimanding him, he always buys Gogurt in bulk, he volunteers at the local dog shelter, he makes sure Nate has turned off all the lights before leaving his house, and he's just so Mikey that it would've been more surprising if Nate didn't secretly harbor a massive crush on him. 

Nate doesn't know where it all went wrong for them. Or, well, where it all went wrong for him. Because he's the one currently holed up in his room having flashbacks to a life he hasn't lived yet, and at this rate probably never will, while Mikey is off doing god knows what. Better than Nate, that's for sure, because Nate has hit absolute rock bottom and boys like Mikey never stray too far from the sun. 

 

**

 

“I keep having those… dreams,” he tells Maddie, who's watching TV in the living room. She looks up from her spot on the couch, dark hair falling in her eyes. She frowns. 

“You mean the flashbacks?”

“No. You know they're not real, so don't try to mess with me; it's not funny.”

“It's not funny,” she mocks, lowering her voice. She rolls her eyes. “I’m serious, dickwipe.”

“I’m serious, too. If you weren't so busy, I don't know, getting off on blood, you would've been there for when the doctor told me that they were dreams.” Nate’s hands are clenched in fists, and he's standing in the doorway, ready to bolt whenever necessary. 

“Dr. Fartman has no clue what she's talking about.”

“She has a phD from Harvard!”

“Harvard, Schmarvard. What did you want, again? I'm watching Real Housewives.” She pauses the TV.

Nate groans, rubbing his hands over his face. Seriously, he has come to Maddie Bastian for advice. The girl who, when asked by a friend on whether she should get the blue or purple top, responded with: think about it, if you died right now, would you really want to be living your eternal ghost life wearing turquoise? 

Which, granted, she had a point, but who even says that to another human being?

“I think I’m going crazy.”

“Why? Because you know you're going to marry McLeod?”

“I don't know anything.”

“You are a terrible liar, Nate,” Maddie says like it’s simply a fact, adjusting herself like she was just getting started. “Like, the worst. Throwback to when you ripped a hole in the trampoline and when Mom confronted you, you said that termites are evolving—”

“That was so long ago—”

“That was last year! Anyway, you're the worst. Liar and person. But when you woke up, and asked where your ring was, I almost believed you. Like, I almost asked Dad, hey, where is Nate’s engagement ring? Has anyone seen it? So, like, I believe you when you say you saw some shit while you were in Limbo Land.” 

“Limbo Land?”

“Is that all you took from that?”

Nate flops down face first onto the couch in exasperation. “I'm a selective listener.” 

“No, you're an asshole.” Nate makes a half assed attempted to hit her. “Why are you even freaking out about this? It's not like you actually like Mikey or anything.” 

Silence.

“Earth to assclown?”

Nate can almost feel the exact moment Maddie realizes, the second of stillness in the room, and he lets out a strangled sigh from the back of his throat while Maddie simultaneously screams. 

“No way!” There's a pillow being thrown. “That's so gay!”

“Yes, Madeline,” Nate lifts his face from the cushions. “It is very gay. Because I’m gay.”

“Okay, wow, plot twist. Is that why Mikey’s not talking to you?”

Nate lifts his face from the cushion just to narrow his eyes at her, and he realizes she's not mocking him, she's curious. Genuine. Or as genuine as Maddie Bastian could be. 

“How do you know Mikey’s not talking to me?”

“How do— are you— you and— seriously? You're seriously asking how I know you and Mikey aren't talking? When you're not locked in your room, you're in the kitchen making peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, listening to Kesha. You hate Kesha.”

“I do,” Nate says mournfully. 

“Exactly! But you know who likes Kesha? Mikey. And me. That's why I like Mikey, because when I ride with you guys, he lets me listen to her. And you hate her. So why are you listening to her? Because Mikey likes her. And you miss him.”

She's not wrong, and it makes Nate’s skin crawl.

“Ngh,” Nate lets out, closing his eyes. 

“Is that why Mikey’s not talking to you? Because you told him you're gay?” And her voice is rising, worry seeping in. Her voice drops to a whisper with: “Did— did he push you out of his window?”

“Maddie? What the fuck? Have you been talking to Alex?” 

“Which?”

“Nylander,” he says. She pauses. 

“No, his brother is cuter. Should I?”

Nate scoffs. “Um, no. That's not even the—Stop with the crazy conspiracy theories. Mikey didn't push me out of his window.”

“How do you know? You don't remember anything.”

“Do you hear yourself? You're accusing Mikey of pushing me out of his window for telling him I’m gay?”

“Yes.”

“Maddie!”

“What?”

“I'm serious. Mikey didn't push me out his window, okay?”

“You don’t know that! You weren't there.” 

“What do you— what do you even mean I wasn't there? I was— I literally fell two stories!”

“Yeah, like you were there, physically, and yeah, your body fell two stories, but you didn't.”

“I'm too sober to be having this conversation right now,” Nate says, but he mostly says it because he doesn't want to have the conversation. 

He doesn't remember anything immediately preceding the fall, but he remembers bits and pieces about the day. He knows his intent wasn't to come out to Mikey; he just wanted to hang out. He thinks. 

“You mean you're too chicken,” Maddie says, and he’s known her long enough to know that there's supposed to be some bite behind it, but it just falls flat. There's no tension in her shoulders or mean glint in her eyes. She's sitting there across from him, back against the armrest, looking at him like he might shatter at the sound of her voice. 

“I’m not. It's just… it's just like, a proximity crush. He's my best friend. Of course I’m gonna have like, feelings and shit for him.”

“Was he your soulmate in your,” she lifts her hands for air quotes, “dream?”

“... Yes,” Nate answers reluctantly.

Maddie gives him a look. “Have you liked anyone besides Mikey?”

Nate looks at her incredulously, knitting his eyebrows. “It's always been Mikey.” 

She laughs, loudly. “Oh, you're fucked.”

 

*

 

Dylan Strome is the human version of a headache. 

He's tall and gangly, probably was specifically designed to replicate Tim Burton’s art style, laughs too hard at unfunny jokes, leaves the water running wherever he goes, is unbearably clumsy it makes Nate’s heart hurt, and is freakishly obsessed with Connor McDavid, who is as entertaining as wall sits, which is to say not very. 

Mikey must enjoy popping Advils, because Dylan Strome is the closest thing Mikey has to Nate other than Nate himself. 

So, it makes sense, that when Nate is at the grocery store looking for Cheerios, he makes a conscious effort to ignore Dylan at the end of the aisle. His mom is rattling off the nutrition information on Honey Nut versus Plain, when she sees him. 

“Oh, isn't that your friend?” She asks, and he loves his mom, he really does, but she is the most clueless person on the entirety of planet Earth. She even believed the termite story. 

“No.” He takes Honey Nut off of the shelf, and drops it into the cart. 

“I see him at Mikey’s house all the time,” she comments.

“Well, he's not at our house for a reason,” he says, and he pushes the cart to get out of there before Dylan can see him, but his Mom is still deciding between Raisin Bran and Special K and the universe is out to get Nate specifically for lying to his neighbor about breaking their window that one time, so Dylan spots them anyway. 

Instead of yelling ‘Hey, Nater!’ and bumping into the wall four times on the way over like Nate thought he would, Dylan… falls. Straight to the floor. Behind an unshelved stack of Mini Wheats. There are three other people in the aisle, two girls and one guy, and they all stare at the him in shared silence. 

“Okay.” His mom tilts her head. “I can see why you’re not friends now.”

 

*

 

Duber comes with Nate to his checkup three days later, and tells him about Dylangate. Duber laughs, and he’s the kind of guy whose laugh sounds like he’s dying, and they’re in the waiting room and people are giving them weird looks, so it’s a strong possibility that they actually thinks he’s dying.

When the laughter fades and Duber wipes the tears from his eyes, he glances around at the white walls, white lights, linoleum floors. The smell of lysol hangs in the air.

“Hey.” He nudges Nate.

“Yeah?”

“Glad you’re back.”

 

*

 

As much as Maddie likes to think, she is not the first person Nate has come out to. It was to his parents after his seventeenth birthday, and it was awkward and painful. His mom had asked when Nate was going to bring a girl home, and he said never, and then his dad laughed and asked if he was gay, and Nate said yes, and his Mom dropped the knife she was holding.

“Oh, is that why you snuck that boy into your room last week?”

“Mom!”

“You could’ve just used the front door.”

The boy he snuck into his room was Mikey, because Mikey wanted to try out climbing into windows because he was jealous Nate did it all the time, but his mother didn’t need to know that.

 

*

 

Owen Tippett likes parties, he threw one two years ago because he didn’t fail his Chemistry final, so it’s no surprise when Nate gets invited to Owen’s Super Mega Nineteenth Birthday Bash. Owen is the stereotypical dumb meathead jock, but he’s super nice and his girlfriend Taylor drunkenly taught Nate how to do origami, so he’s cool people.

Nate asks Alex if Mikey’s going to be there while they’re shooting hoops in Nate’s driveway, and Alex sort of evades the question, actually, he completely evades the question, and throws the ball straight at Nate’s head.

“Holy shit, Alex, what the hell?”

He stands there, looking at Nate, eyes narrowed. “I can’t understand your English.”

“You’ve lived here since you were six!”

“The real Nate would know I’ve lived here since I was five and a half.”

“Would you stop with your conspiracies!” Nate rubs his temple, frowning. “Trying to put me in another coma?”

“Have you not talked to him?”

“Mikey? No. He should be talking to me- he’s the one who stopped talking to me.”

Alex teeters disapprovingly, shaking his head. “That’s childish and you know it.”

“I don’t care. He’s supposed to be my best friend, and he hasn’t spoken to me in like, what, a month? And I’m supposed to roll over and beg for his attention? That’s fucked dude, and you know it.”

“Why don’t you just reach out to him, then?”

“Because- because,” Nate splutters. He lets out a smothered yelp, jaw dropped. “Why don’t you just reach out to him? I was in a coma! For twenty two days! Because I fell out of his window!

Alex hums thoughtfully, collecting the basketball from the bushes, dribbling it a few times. Nate watches him with his arms crossed over his chest. 

Alex is acting like it’s easy for him to cut off Mikey. He’s acting like Nate doesn’t scroll through their conversations every morning and every night. It’s like clockwork, and it’s honestly pathetic, but Nate can’t help himself. He has all his videos with Mikey favorited on his camera roll so he can get to them quicker when he’s bored, his fucking home screen is Mikey and that stupid kitana. He’ll never, ever admit that one time he listened to that snapchat Mikey left him singing the Education Connection jingle on repeat until he fell asleep.

Alex is acting like it’s easy to give up what he had in another lifetime, in another universe. In another universe, they weren’t just Nate and Mikey, they were Nate and Mikey. There’s a difference. Maddie likes to entertain other beliefs, but Nate knows, Nate makes sure he knows, that whatever is plaguing him isn’t real. The line is still there. 

Alex is acting like it’s easy for Nate to turn his back on someone who was so intertwined in his life, they had a shared finsta. Seriously. Nate doesn’t remember the password, though.

Nate didn’t notice the foundation of their lives were unsteady until it gave, and now he’s standing in the sinkhole with glass in his hands, wondering how he didn’t see the warning signs. 

But Mikey turned his back first, and Nate’s in too deep to turn around now.

“You know how Mikey is. He thinks it’s his way or the freeway.”

Nate glares. “It’s highway,” and then, “Just because he’s pretty doesn’t mean he can treat people like shit.”

Alex shrugs, in a what can you do sort of way. “He has that complex, you have the pride thing going on, so honestly? You guys were bound to clash. I never thought it’d be this bad, if that helps.”

“It doesn’t.” Nate rolls his eyes. “You never answered my question.”

“Do you want to go to Tips’ party?”

“Well, yeah.”

“Then go,” Alex claps him on the shoulder. 

Nate listens.

 

*

 

Owen wasn’t lying about the Super Mega part. When Nate pulls up in the passenger seat of Duber’s car, he can feel the music in the soles of his feet. He swallows his heart down his throat, and opens the door.

The house is huge and there’s immediately a solo cup being shoved into his hands, following by what looks like a hand grenade, and Nate trusts Gibs (somewhat), and he brings the cup to his lips, and he sees him. Mikey. He sees Mikey over the rim of the cup. He sees Mikey in the crowd of a hundred people in the cramped living room and he’d see Mikey in a crowd of a million, too. They always find each other.

He tips it back. It burns. He deserves it.

 

*

Five hours later, the sun is long gone and Nate is sitting on a lawn chair. He’s cold but then he realizes that he’s somehow acquired a UCLA sweatshirt, and it’s a little snug, but it helps. He’s listening to Owen go on and on about how nice Taylor’s hair is, all while Taylor is passed out directly beneath his chair. Owen’s flip flop is on her back, supposedly acting as a blanket, but he has huge feet, so Nate honestly think it might be working.

“How can you love her so much if you don’t know she’s your soulmate?”

“Fuck that soulmate shit, bro,” Owen slurs, shaking his head earnestly. “Seriously. Fuck it. Fuck it in the pussy. Fuck it in the ass. Fuck it in the mouth. I don’t care, but fuck. It. It’s honestly- I can’t even- it’s so- I don’t know how to enamorate,” Nate thinks he means elaborate, but he doesn’t interrupt, “It’s just so stupid. That you get this five second feeling when you’re twenty one and it determines who you should be with for the rest of your life.”

Nate’s head lolls onto the armrest, and he glances at Owen, who’s still staring at him. “But it’s the person who’s best for you.”

“So? What if Taylor is the second best person for me, and she lost by like, less than one point. I’m talking, like, a hairline fracture. Like, a hairsbreadth. Like, tiny. The tiniest thing you can think of.”

“Your dick?”

Owen blinks at him, unperturbed. “Yeah, that. Anyway, does that mean I should just dump her because someone is like, my dick points better than her? That’s, like, fucked, man. And not in the cool way, like that kid fucks. Like Barstool fucks. But like, it’s fucked, in the way that I can already feel my heart eroding away just at the thought of breaking up with her. Breaking up just on the off chance that someone better might be out there. Which, you know, is fucked.”

And Owen’s not even looking at Nate anymore, he’s looking at Taylor, who’s snoring softly, a singular flip flop placed on her back, and Owen’s in love.

Nate sympathizes.

 

*

 

Nate goes to the bathroom, because he needs to get rid of the all that alcohol somehow if he’s not puking, and the door bursts open. Nate turns around and, because it has to be, it’s Dylan Strome, red eyed and snotty nosed.

“What are you doing in here?” Dylan barks. Nate rolls his eyes and zips his pants.

“You’re the one who walked in on me,” Nate says, and Dylan’s shoulders drop. 

“Oh. Yeah. Right.” Dylan closes the door behind him as he leaves, and Nate doesn’t even ponder it, because it’s Dylan.

 

*

 

Nate walks out onto the balcony of Owen’s bedroom, which overlooks Owen’s backyard, and neither Owen or Taylor are out there, so Nate assumes they’re somewhere inside. The party is still going on, a sizable number of people chilling in the basement or living room. Nate was offered a joint, but it was from Mitchell Stephens, who’s kind of greasy, and Nate knows he’s kind of greasy and he would never accept a joint offered by himself, so he declined. 

He hears the sliding door open, and he assumes it’s Owen telling him to get the fuck out, but when Nate turns around, all he sees is his future.

 

*

 

Mikey, sitting across from him in cafe, typing something away on his laptop. Nate takes a sip of Mikey’s coffee, and instead of hitting him, Mikey hooks his foot around Nate’s calf. They move around each other easily.

 

*

 

Mikey doesn’t say anything when he comes to stand next to Nate, hands resting on the railing. They stand in silence for a few moments, and Nate is kind of glad. He wants to get used to this, soak it in, he never wants to take Mikey’s presence for granted ever again. 

“So you’re gonna make me say something first?” Nate asks, and his throat is so dry, his voice cracks. Mikey doesn’t say anything, doesn’t even move.

“Okay, fine, I’ll talk for the both of us. Oh, Nathan, I missed you so much, I missed your beautiful acne free face and hot bod. Okay, this is me now: Mikey, you’re okay I guess. How’d you survive two months without me? Oh, Nathan, I didn’t. I actually died while you were in a coma because I couldn’t live without-”

Mikey is laughing so hard, it echoes. “Okay, okay, shut up. Please.”

Nate nudges him, a smile threatening to bloom. I love you. “I miss you.”

“I miss you too.”

“Then why didn’t you call?”

Mikey still hasn’t looked at Nate and the silence afterwards in deafening. He didn’t mean to ruin things by saying it out loud, but that doesn’t mean he regrets it. He can’t keep living on the edge of a building, legs dangling, waiting for Mikey to tell him when to jump. 

Mikey takes a deep breath. “I hear the sound of you hitting the ground every night.”

Oh.

“I’m right here,” he tells him, and he grabs Mikey’s elbow for emphasis. Mikey doesn’t turn his head.

“You don’t get it,” Mikey says. “Everytime I look out my window, I see you falling; I see the blood. It’s like, one minute I’m talking to you and the next you’re on the ground, knocked out. That fucking crack, Nate. You didn’t hear it.”

And Nate… Nate hadn’t thought about that.

“And looking at you is like seeing a dead boy walking, because I saw you dead. Well, you weren’t actually dead, but I thought you were. And I thought it was my fault. I ran outside and cried over your body like a terrible version of The OC until 911 came. And, you know, as much as people tell me it wasn’t my fault, it didn’t feel that way- it still doesn’t. So, I know I acted like a piece of shit for the last month, but I can’t look at you and not think about how gone you looked in the ambulance.”

“You still haven’t.”

“What?” Mikey asks, frowning.

“Looked at me. You still haven’t looked at me.”

Nate can see the tension leave Mikey’s body, his body relaxing, and he turns his head. If someone asked for Nate’s favorite color, he’d just refer to Mikey’s eyes. They’re a soft blue green mix, and it reminds him of their trip to Italy three summers ago. He misses Italy. He’s missed Mikey’s eyes, too.

“Hi Nathan,” he starts. “I missed you so much, I missed your beautiful acne free face and hot bod.”

“I’m not going anywhere,” Nate tells him, and Mikey leans closer to him. Nate feels a hand running through his hair, and he melts into the touch like an instinct. Mikey pulls Nate into a hug, face tucked in Nate’s shoulder. Nate feels light on his feet, buzzed in a way the alcohol couldn’t make him, and lets the world move around him.

Mikey’s hand presses down on a scar, and his mouth is moving against Nate’s neck. “Here.” His finger threads over it. “You lost two pints of blood.”

Nate hums noncommittally. “Still here.”

“So… we’re good?” Mikey asks, and all of a sudden he’s a little shy, but he looks a little hopeful, and Nate feels like he’s missing something.

“Um, yeah. I thought we established that already.”

Mikey knits his eyebrows. “Well, I mean, about the other… stuff. What I did.”

What he did?

“What you did?”

“Yeah.” Mikey pauses. “What I did.”

“What you did.”

“Yes, what I did.”

“What you-”

“Oh my God, do you know what I did or not?” Mikey asks. “Wait. Do you not remember that night?”

Nate shakes his head. “Um. No. I don’t remember anything. I thought that was common knowledge. I mean, you’d have probably known that if you called.”

Mikey ignores the latter part of Nate’s statement. “So… you don’t remember anything?”

“That's what I just said.”

Mikey smiles, oddly enough. Nate should feel suspicious, but he’s just glad they’re back together again. As like, best friends. He should probably tell Mikey about the gay thing, though. Maybe later.

“Okay, cool.” Mikey is the first to pull away, and Nate isn’t really surprised in the aspect, and he pats Nate on the chest. “Missed you.”

Nate can feel his heart beating out of his chest. I dream about you sometimes, please don’t smile like that.

“Missed you too.”

 

*

 

Maddie fidgets with the radio and Tik Tok comes on. She pauses, and glances at Nate. He changes the station.

She smiles.

 

*

 

Mikey comes over to Nate’s house with a small cardboard box. They’re hanging in Nate’s room, watching vine compilations on TV. Nate’s laying at the foot of the bed, and Mikey’s sitting with his back against the headboard. 

Mikey nudges Nate with his foot, which is gross, because they’re feet, and Nate lets out a displeased sound and swats him away. Mikey nudges again.

“What?” Nate whines.

“You haven’t opened the box.” Nate turns over to face him, and Mikey’s frowning. Drama queen. But Nate’s a sucker for Mikey’s puppy dog eyes, and carries himself to the desk where the box sits on. 

It’s filled with coasters. 

Like, coasters from restaurants. There are at least thirty thrown into the box, Nate notes, and he sees some from Applebees, Olive Garden, The Keg. Even Timmies.

Nate’s confused, but he’s smiling. “How did you get so many of these?”

Mikey props an arm behind his head. “I just like, collected them while you were… gone, I guess.”

“You brought me coasters.”

“Well, yeah.” Mikey gives him a weird look. “You love them.”

Which Nate does, because he feels fancy as fuck whenever he uses one, but he mostly keeps that thought to himself. He occasionally dabbled in stealing coasters from whatever restaurants they visited, Moxies has the best by far, and he has a stash of them in his desk.

“I didn’t think you knew that,” Nate says, dumping the box into the bottom drawer of his desk.

Mikey rolls his eyes. “I know you better than you know yourself.”

Nate takes his word.

*

 

Alex laughs in his face the next time they FaceTime.

 

*

 

“Hey, that cloud kinda looks like a juul.”

“You mean a rectangle? That’s so specific,” Mikey says. It’s a nauseatingly warm Thursday evening, and Mikey works at the local Cold Stone. He brought Nate back a cup of Birthday Batter without Nate even having to ask, which was cool of him. They’re laying on their backs on Mikey’s roof, which is the prime spot for cloud watching.

“Yeah, well, it’s all about the imagination.”

“Why’s the first thing you think of when you see a rectangle a juul?”

“Um. Because I’m cool?”

“You are definitely not.” Mikey kicks him in the shin. “Only lame people juul.”

“Yeah, well, you love me anyway.” Nate pulls Mikey into a headlock, and Mikey squawks in protest. Nate messes up Mikey’s hair as much as he can in the four seconds he has him pinned, and Mikey pops out with the worst case of nonbed bedhead. It’s a good look on him.

“Love you? Yes. Like you? That’s debatable.”

Nate laughs and looks up. The sky is purple, the clouds are white, he’s on a roof, and he’s in love.

 

*

 

Proximity his ass.

 

*

 

“Guess who just got their impression.”

“Oh shit, Willy!”

“Yeah.” Alex pauses. “He said it was like, apple pie and baseball. Probably an American.”

“Gross.”

“Yeah, I know. He just broke up with Lily.”

“Oh wait, I forgot he had a girlfriend.” Is that Mikey?

“Mikey?”

“Hello to you too, Nate.”

“Alex, is this a threeway?” 

“I’m not having sex with you!” Alex cries.

“Ugh, not that threeway,” Mikey explains. “Like, a threeway phone call.”

“Well, I didn’t wanna make two separate calls to tell you guys the same thing!” Alex says while Nate goes, “I didn’t know having sex with me would be so repulsing,”. He’s changing Billy’s litter, so the phone is sandwiched between his ear and shoulder.

“I wasn’t saying ugh at you, I was saying ugh at Alex.”

“Can you guys not flirt right now?”

“Sorry,” Mikey says, at the same time Nate says, “We’re not flirting.”

“Anyway,” Alex continues. “I mean, it makes sense, because he goes to like, Vanderbilt, but still. I feel bad for Lily.”

“Yeah, Willy’s always been into the whole soulmate thing, so I don’t know why he’d get a serious girlfriend that he’d eventually have to break up with,” Nate says.

“I mean, I understand why. If you don’t have a relationship before your soulmate, how will it work out? Like, how will you know to navigate it? Having a relationship before the impression is like, training wheels, I guess, for the real thing,” Mikey says.

Nate makes a thoughtful noise. “Sure, maybe, but he broke up with her as soon as he got the impression which isn’t fair to Lily. He knew he was going to, and he still lead her on, which was a dick move.”

“Would you be in a relationship with a person you knew wasn’t your soulmate?” Mikey asks.

“We’re going slightly off topic here,” Alex interjects. “And we’re back! Actually, no, I’m going to give you guys some alone time. I’m actually sick of your voice Nate. Bye.”

Alex hangs up and Nate is confused. “I didn’t even say anything!”

“He’s probably referring to the four weeks where you cried to him about how much you missed me.”

Nate colors and scratches Billy’s head for her because he’s a G like that. “Shut up.”

“Okay, well I know you did complain about how you weren’t going to call first.”

“Yeah, and then you cornered me at Tips’ party and forced me to say something because you were being so awkward.”

“Well it worked, didn’t it?” Nate groans because Mikey’s right, and he brings his hand up to rub his face, but he gets cat hair all over himself instead.

“You’re the worst.”

“I’m smart.”

And, well, he could bring up that time Mikey thought shotgunning had to do with actual shotguns, but he doesn’t argue.

 

*

 

“Nate, I am not playing hide and seek with you!” Nate hears Mikey yell as he runs up the stairs. “I just wanna watch Gossip Girl.”

“Tada!” Nate yells, opening the door, but he slips on something, and falls hard onto his ass as Mikey turns the corner.

“Why were you in the closet?”

Nate gets up and stares.

Mikey looks unamused. “You are so weird.”

Nate crosses his arms over his chest, defensively. “You know, Maddie has this theory that you pushed me out of your window because I told you I’m gay.”

Mikey’s face turns beet red, and he leans over to shove Nate. “That’s not even funny! Is that what she really thinks of me?”

“I don’t know.” Nate shrugs and closes the closet door behind him. “She only likes you because of your mutual affection for Kesha.”

“Kesha’s great!”

“I don’t really care, this whole conversation is about me and not Kesha.”

“Oh, right.” At least he has the nerve to look sheepish. “How long have you like… known?”

“I mean, probably all my life, but, I told my parents like, two years ago. So.” Another shrug.

Mikey just looks at him, his stare unwavering. “Do you really not remember that night?”

And honestly, the term That Night should probably be trademarked because of how often it’s referenced.

“No,” Nate drawls out slowly, so Mikey could understand. “I don’t remember anything.”

Mikey hums. “Okay. So what episode were we on?”

 

*

 

Nate (6:42): hey i told mikey so u shld probs know too but im GAY

Alex (10:01): nice

Nate (10:01): i come out to u and u text me 4 hrs later with “nice” fuck u

Alex (10:15): i’m sorry i’m not on my phone 24/7

Alex (10:15): i just always sorta…. knew

Nate (10:16): how. be careful with ur words.

Alex (10:21): idk you and mikey were just always weird so i figured you guys were together on the DL

Alex (10:21): who else have you told

Nate (10:21): just because mikey and i are super tight doesnt mean we are gay 4 each other. i mean im gay but not for mikey. maybe for his arms. Not for him. Mikey is a straight dudebro as far as ik

Alex (10:52): ummmmmmmmm what

Alex (10:52): are you guys not together now

Nate (10:55): he’s in the bathroom

Alex (11:12): not like that you dunce

Alex (11:12): i meant like together together. 

Nate (11:15): wtf no why would we be

Alex (12:01): !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Alex (12:01): ummmmmmmm what the sequel

Nate (12:03): why would mikey and i be together??!!!?!??!?!?!?!???!?!

Alex (12:27): because of that night?

Nate (12:30): if someone refers to the night i fell into a COA as that night i will kill them

Nate (12:30): *coma

Nate (12:30): dont talk to me like i know what happened ~that night~ because i dont

Alex (1:14): i dont know english goodnight

Okay then.

 

*

 

It’s still early morning when Nate first comes to, and he’s rewarded with sunshine streaming through his curtains, giving everything a blanket of softness. He looks over at Mikey, who’s face is tucked in the crook of his neck. He categorizes the length of Mikey’s eyelashes, the scar on his left cheek. He can feel every breath he takes. It’s like a gentle reminder of, I’m here, I’m with you, this is not a dream even if you have already dreamt this.

Nate thinks, I’ve been here before.

 

*

 

“Hey.” Mikey kicks him.

Nate looks at him, frowning, because he doesn’t understand why Mikey likes to kick so much, but he responds anyway, because he’s a good person. 

“What?”

“Would you be in a relationship with a person you know isn’t your soulmate?”

Nate frowns, wiping his mouth. “I think this topic is a little too deep to have in, you know,” and he waves his hand broadly, gesturing to the fact that they’re in Chipotle.

Mikey laughs, but there’s something off about it, like he’s nervous. “Sorry. Just curious.”

“I mean, personally, no. I think your soulmate is your best option, so why choose someone else? I’d probably maybe, have like, a relationship but not one where we plan our futures together. Why would we plan a future that doesn’t exist?” Nate shoves some leftover rice in his mouth. “But I don’t know why you’re so curious. We’re nearly two years away from our impressions. There isn’t enough time to fall in love.” Nate pauses. “You could be my pseudo relationship. Hey! Maybe this is our pseudo relationship.”

Mikey rolls his eyes. “I can’t ask you anything serious, can I?”

“Not while we’re in Chipotle and I have a bowl burrito shoved in my mouth, no,” Nate confirms.

He gets kicked again.

 

*

 

Alex (1:52): IS THAT WHY YOU TOLD ME TO STOP SAYING NO HOMO

 

*

“Hey, do you know what you’re doing for your birthday?” Owen asks him. And. Oh right. He has a birthday. He’s in Owen’s basement again, but this time Gibs and are there.

“Probably going out to eat with my family, I don’t know.”

“Can I throw a party for you?”

Um. 

Him and Owen are friends, but they’re not the type to throw birthday parties for each other. But Nate would be crazy to turn down free alcohol.

“Knock yourself out,” Nate says, and he reaches past Owen to grab a handful of tortilla chips. 

 

*

“Did it hurt?” Mikey asks. 

“From when I fell from heaven?”

“No. From when you fell out of the closet.”

 

*

 

He’s turning nineteen in twelve hours, and he’s playing Uno with Maddie in the backyard, because she didn’t feel like making the five minute trek to her friend’s house, and now she’s forcing Nate to entertain her because she’s selfish. He can feel Billy watching him from his bedroom window.

“Hey,” Maddie starts, peering over his card. “So did Mikey push you out of his window or not?”

Nate glares at her. “Stop that.” He puts down a red eight.

“Did he tell you what happened before you tumbled out of his room?”

“... No.”

“Hm,” Maddie hums. She puts down a plus four. She catches him off guard with, “No pick and play, I change the color to blue, reverse it back to me, uno, uno out.”

 

*

 

Nate’s birthday isn’t a Super Mega Birthday Bash, but it’s still huge. Maybe not to Owen’s standards, but there’s a banner hanging outside of Owen’s house that reads ‘HAPPY BDAY N8’ and when he asks Owen about it, he tells them the store ran out of As, Ts, and Es, which of course they did. It makes a great tweet, though.

There’s a present pile for him in the foyer, and he’s fairly sure most of them are gag gifts, but it’s the thought that counts. 

Alex claps him on the shoulder, and slurs, “Happy Birthday, Birthday.”

Nate shakes his head at him, laughing, because they’ve been there for maybe all of twenty minutes and Alex is halfway drunk. He’d expected Alex to up his tolerance, but by the looks of it, he’ll always be a lightweight.

“Thanks.” Nate slings an arm around his shoulder. “Let’s get this party started.”

Nate ends up playing beer pong with Mikey half an hour later, and for some reason, Mikey’s shirt is half unbuttoned. Nate isn’t complaining, though. It’s kind of hilarious to watch Alex feign like he has any sort of hand eye coordination, and it’s even funnier to watch Dylan Strome make a complete ass of himself. It’s a win win situation, really.

“Heating up,” Mikey calls next to him, and he can hear Dylan groan from across the table. Alex just looks happy to be there.

Mikey sinks the last shot and Dylan makes Alex drink it, even though it was his turn to. Alex laughs and downs it anyway. Mikey hi fives Nate and pulls him into a bone crushing, all consuming hug, and he doesn’t really know why beer pong caused Mikey to be so affectionate, because they won after all, but he’ll take it. 

“I don’t understand how I got stuck with Alex,” Dylan says, and Nate looks as Alex virtually clings to Dylan, pressing their bodies together. Summer has treated Alex nicely, so he’s tan, but he’s also flushed, so his platinum blonde hair is a stark contrast to his red skin. He kind of looks like one of those troll dolls Nate used to get with his Happy Meals.

“You’re easily persuaded,” Mikey tells him.

“No I’m not.”

“Yes you are,” Mikey comments.

“Okay, maybe.”

Nate laughs because Dylan is such a fucking idiot.  
But. 

Nate is only dick points better than Dylan, and that’s a trip.

He doesn’t know why it hits him so suddenly, but he’s looking at Mikey looking at Dylan, and he feels like he’s seeing a watered down version of themselves. It’s like, everything’s blurry, but he blinks, once, twice, and everything’s okay again. He grips the pong table, the Four Loko that he drank earlier deciding to say hello and ask him how he’s doing.

“Hey.” Nate nudges Mikey with his shoulder. “I’m your favorite right?”

The smile Nate receives in response is slow and sweet. “Who else would it be?”

It’s enough.

 

*

 

Alex is face down in the backyard and Nate has deja vu. He’s just missing a flip flop.

He lost Mikey in the crowd of girls that fawned over his attention, Nate knew he could handle himself, because Mikey’s a big boy and can use his words, so he left him. Nate was kind of surprised at the girls that offered to give him a “special birthday present” because that kind of context is usually reserved for Mikey (it’s not like he would accept them anyway) but it’s nice to be wanted, after all.

“Sorry I’m puking on your birthday,” Alex says, and then projectiles. Nate lets out a breath that’s supposed to be a laugh, but he feels kind of bad.

He cards his hand through Alex’s sweat soaked hair reluctantly, because he doesn’t know why Alex is sweating, and watches as he pukes into the grass. Nate should get him to a toilet, but Alex looks comfortable and it isn’t either of their backyards, so. They stay.

“It’s not technically my birthday yet.” Which is true, because Nate’s birthday tragically falls on a Sunday, and no one wants to show up to work trashed on a Monday, so Owen was nice enough to schedule it on a Saturday. That means Nate is an hour away from being nineteen.

“Yes, it is. It’s like, three AM.”

Which, can’t be true. They cut his cake like an hour ago and it was chocolate ice cream, which was nice. Mikey smeared frosting all over his face, which wasn’t nice, and he tried to wash his face, but he’s pretty sure he still has some on his forehead. He’s too smacked to bother cleaning it now. So he checks his phone, which is conveniently on one percent. And it is, in fact, 3:21.

“Oh. I guess you’re right.”

“Sorry I’m sloshed,” Alex hiccups.

“Seriously, you’re good.”

Alex rolls over onto his back. “Sorry you fell out a window.”

“Well, you didn’t push me.”

“Sorry Mikey kissed you and then you fell out a window.”

Which is. What.

Nate slaps Alex in the face, and it’s loud, but he knows it doesn’t hurt. “What?”

Alex’s head lolls to the side, and he looks up at Nate, who’s sitting next to him. 

“Mikey kissed you, you didn’t kiss him back, he told you to leave, and then you fell out a window.”

Nate can feel his heart beating against his ribcage violently, and he doesn’t know what to with his hands. They’re shaking, and he doesn’t want to let on how nervous he is, so he tucks them underneath himself. Mikey kissed him. Mikey put his lips on Nate’s. Voluntarily. Because he wanted to. And Nate doesn’t even remember.

So that’s what was lost in translation. 

“That isn’t funny,” Nate says, because Alex actually might be joshing him, because Alex can be an asshole sometimes

“I’m not joking,” Alex responds. “That’s why I thought you didn’t want to call him, because you were mad at him, and he didn’t wanna call you, because he thought you were mad at him, and I don’t know if I’m supposed to be saying this, actually, but you guys kissed and then you fell out a window.”

“I think you should sleep,” Nate suggests. Alex makes a face,

“Don’t tell me what to do.”

Nate leaves Alex on the grass because Alex begins to pass out, anyway. He goes back into the house to find Mikey, because as great as a night Nate was having, his feet feel heavy and his mind is swimming. 

He just wants to go home and sleep, preferably with Mikey. He thinks Alex might be lying, because it just… makes no sense. As to why Mikey would kiss Nate and just not bring it up, and let it fall into a wasteland of memories. Especially if he didn’t mean it, because as far as Nate knows, Mikey is straight. And Nate likes to hypothesize that if he were straight, kissed Mikey, and Mikey fell out a window and into a coma, the first thing Nate’d say to him was, ha, my lips were so luscious they knocked you into a coma.

So. He doesn’t know what to make of that. Oh, God, is that what Mikey was talking about at Owen’s? He’s still technically at Owen’s, but. You know. Asking Nate if they were good because of ‘what he did?’. Nate needs to throw up. Nate needs to throw up. He’s turning nineteen in an hour, his best friend kissed him two months ago, and he needs to throw up.

Nate stumbles into the foyer moments later, and both Dylan Strome and Mikey are there. They’re sitting with their backs against the wall, with Mikey laying his head on Dylan’s shoulder. His eyes are closed, so Nate assumes he’s sleeping.

“Not even four and he’s gone,” Dylan says, but there’s no edge.

“He was going pretty hard,” Nate says, and they both help Mikey to his feet. “I’m getting tired. Might crash here.”

“Oh, it’s no worries, I can drive you guys back to your place.”

You guys. As in, both Nate and Mikey. Nate and Mikey who have kissed, according to drunk Alex.

“Oh, um. That sounds good, I guess.”

Dylan shrugs easily, but he’s still staring at Mikey. It’s like staring in a distorted funhouse mirror. “No problem. Happy birthday, by the way.”

 

*

 

Nate doesn’t know why she’s up, but Maddie is in the kitchen doing god knows what, and she side eyes him as drops his presents in the living room and basically lugs Mikey up their steps. Seriously, since when were there so many stairs? His head hurts. 

He drops Mikey onto his bed and begins to change out of his clothes, and his heart when he hears Mikey mumble:

“Hey, that bruise on your ass kind of looks like a didgeridoo."

He’s heard that before. He’s fucking heard that before, and Nate turns around so fast he gets whiplash.

“What did you say?”

Mikey is in his duvet, stripped down to his boxers, hair mussed. His eyes are glassy and he’s looking at Nate earnestly, even though Nate’s pretty sure he looks like he’s about to explode.

“I said,” Mikey swallows. “The bruise on your ass kinda looks like a didgeridoo.”

Nate sleeps in the guest room that night.

 

*

Nate doesn’t know what to do with himself. He doesn’t know what to do with Mikey, either. He’s sitting in a blank room with white sheets because he’s convinced himself for the last fucking month that no, it’s impossible, it was all in his head, which yes, it was in his head, but it was true. Everything he saw was true.

He feels like he’s in some dumb romcom movie where he’s supposed to run into Mikey’s arms, but everything’s so fucked that he’s too scared to get out of bed. A bed that isn’t even his, because Mikey’s still in his room. He’s always been a late riser.

This is where Mikey and him talk about their feelings and things are supposed to end happily ever after, but Nate knows that’s not how it’s going to go down. It’s going to be nasty and they’re both going to be bruised because Nate isn’t the type of guy to get happily ever afters. Maybe Mikey is, but that doesn’t mean anything. Nate didn't intend to become his own antagonist, but it happened, and he can’t do anything about. 

There’s a knock.

“Come in,” Nate says, and his voice cracks. 

Mikey peeks in, and he’s wearing sunglasses indoors because he’s a freak. 

“Hey.” His voice is still layered with sleep, and Nate’s heart hurts. “Why’re you in here?”

“Um,” Nate stammers. Might as well get it over with. “You kissed me.”

Mikey’s posture immediately straightens. That sobered him up. “What?”

“You ki-”

“I know what I did, fuck,” Mikey spits. Nate swings his leg over the edge of the bed, and he doesn’t dare meet Mikey’s eyes. “Who told you?”

“I don’t… wanna say.”

Mikey rolls his eyes and crosses his arm over his chest. “Okay. I guess I’m gonna go, then.”

“Wait, what? Why?”

“Because I didn’t tell you for a reason. I wanted to forget it ever happened.”

Nate chases after Mikey’s retreating figure, and says, “I had dreams.”

“The fuck does that mean?”

“It means, like, when I was in the coma… I had dreams that I was, like, older, and had a job. But um, you were there.”

“Okay…” Mikey says expectantly.

“And we were together. But, I know now, somehow, that they weren’t just dreams. They were telling me the future. Like, I’m a hundred percent sure I heard you say the didgeridoo thing before.”

“Holy, fuck, Nate!” Mikey exclaims, and he’s angry. Nate steps back because Mikey’s scaring him, and he’s glad that his parents aren’t home. 

“What?”

“Can you not treat everything like a fucking joke?”

Okay. Nate wasn’t expecting that. “What do you mean?”

“Someone tells you I kissed you and now you’re telling me you woke up with fucking memories of us being together? Jesus Christ, take one thing seriously. Please.” But Mikey’s storming into Nate’s room, tugging on his wrinkled button down and cargo shorts.

“I’m not joking, why would I joke about that?” Nate lets out a nervous laugh.

“Because you’re you. You deflect anything that would require, I don’t know, actual feelings with humor because you’re crazy!”

Nate frowns. “I’m not crazy!”

Mikey lets out a strangled scream and runs his hands through his hair. “See what I mean!”

Okay, he has a point. 

“I’m sorry.” I love you. I'm sorry I love you.

“If you had these dreams, why didn’t you tell me earlier?” Mikey asks, and he’s still angry, but now he’s sifting through Nate’s stuff like he’s looking for something.

“The same reason you didn’t tell me about the kiss.”

Mikey finds an envelope sandwiched between Nate’s mattress and bed frame, and throws it at Nate. Nate is actually kind of surprised at the amount of speed it gets, and avoids a mean paper cut by ducking.

“Happy fucking birthday, asshole!” 

Mikey begins to storm out and Nate lets him, but then he hears:

“If you could really see the future, you wouldn’t have climbed up my fucking window, idiot!”

The door slams. Nate lets him leave.

 

*

 

Nate can hear his heart break.

He should’ve saw it coming.

 

*

 

He’s in the middle of making a PBJ when it hits him with what he should’ve responded.

Seeing the window incident would’ve made it about me. It’s you. All I ever saw was you.

 

*

Nate opens the envelope. Printed out, is two round trip tickets to Venice, Italy.

 

*

 

Unfortunately, Mikey is really good at this whole ignoring Nate thing. It’s not the first time, after all.

Nate’s bored and he’s listening to Kesha again and Billy’s sitting on his head. He’s going through all the counterarguments he could’ve said and made his life easier.

I think I’ve loved you since I crashed my bike into your lemonade stand.

You can ask Maddie, I’ve been telling her about the dreams for weeks.

You’re going to be my soulmate. I told you so.

 

*

Nate throws rocks at Mikey’s windows because he’s sick of Mikey’s whole I’m so dramatic I’ll throw things at you while I leave thing and martyr complex. Ugh. Falling in love with Alex would be so much easier. And Nate guesses he’s being dramatic with the rock thing, but Mikey brings out the absolute worst in him.

“Mikey, I know you’re in there! I hear your god awful music!” Nate yells. He’s in the midst of throwing another rock, but the window opens, and it hits Mikey square in the nose. Good.

“What are you doing here?”

“Not being a pissbaby.” Nate glares. Mikey stares back. Nate grabs onto a panel and Mikey sighs loudly.

“Don’t you dare climb up. I’m opening the front door.”

 

*

 

They end up sitting on his backyard deck with Miller Lites, which Nate thinks is a good thing. He doesn’t think he could have this conversation sober.

“I’m gay, too. So.”

Nate looks at him. “My coming out was better.”

“Oh my God, it’s not a contest,” Mikey scoffs.

“Everything’s a contest if you work hard enough.”

Mikey rubs a hand over his face, and he looks tired. Frustrated. “This is why I don’t believe you.”

Nate stares steadily. “You wanna know the first thing I said when I woke up?”

“Where’s my Birthday Batter?”

“And I’m the one who always jokes?” Nate narrows his eyes and takes a swig. “No. If you really wanna know-

“You’re the one who offered-”

“I asked my parents where my engagement ring was. Because I thought I was engaged to you.”

Mikey scowls. "That was not the first thing you said." 

Which is technically true, and since Nate is turning a new leaf, he tells the truth. "Fine, it was the second thing I said." 

“Huh.” Mikey tongues the inside of his cheek. “I wasn’t expecting that.”

And it kind of hurts Nate’s feelings that Mikey doesn’t believe him. Because, yes, he knows he likes put humor into everything, but if there was one thing Nate would ever be serious about, it was them. He thought he made that clear enough, but maybe he needs to revise his methods. 

Nate leans in, and the kiss isn’t exactly the best, because he catches Mikey off guard. Mikey tastes like cheap beer and Cotton Candy Gogurt, but at least he’ll remember it this time.

Mikey pulls away first. It’s routine at this point.

“I wasn’t expecting that either.”

Nate shrugs. “Well, it happened.”

“This isn’t funny, you know, if you’re just like- messing with me, or something.”

Nate rolls his eyes. “I’m not that dedicated to comedy. Why would I kiss your ugly face just for fun?”

Mikey sinks into his chair. “I don’t know. You’re weird.” He kicks Nate’s foot. “That night, I didn’t want you to come up because I was like, having a crisis to King of Crises Dylan Strome about you. And then like, he said, I remember this so vividly, he said, if Nate were to die today, would you do anything differently? And then you popped into my window, and I thought, yes, I would. And then I kissed you, and you didn’t kiss me back. I told Alex, like, a day later, because I thought you'd wake up then, but you didn't, and I kind of just thought that was a sign. Maybe doing things differently doesn't mean it's the right thing to do."

Nate can hear the silent buzz of fireflies, the jingle of the neighborhood ice cream truck. Home.

“I was probably surprised, because, you like- kissed me.”

“Fair enough.” Mikey shrugs. He doesn’t add anything onto the subject.

Nate bits the inside of his cheek. "You know, the whole ignoring me thing doesn't make me want you more, or solves the problem. It only teaches me to live without you." 

"I'm sorry; everything comes so easy for us, that when I have to actually think about what I want with you... I short circuit." The sun gives Mikey's profile a soft glow, and everything feels so real. Feels permanent.

“I mean, everything is kinda spotty for me, but I had like, memories of us being soulmates. And living in Toronto. And you were like, a writer for Buzzfeed or some shit.”

“What were you?”

“A lawyer.”

“Of course I worked for Buzzfeed and you were a lawyer. I hate you.” Mikey pauses and looks at Nate out of the side of his eye, and he shifts in his seat. “So. What is this?”

“So you believe me now?”

Mikey shrugs. “You were about to climb up to the same window that you fell out of just to tell me, so I’ll take my chances.”

Nate tries to stifle his smile. “I mean, I want us to be a thing. I’m in it for the long run, but I don’t want to freak you out or scare you away with the soulmate stuff.”

Instead of kicking him, Mikey hooks his foot around Nate’s calf. He lifts his solo cup in the air, and it shines beneath the setting sun, a little like a prayer but mostly like a promise. 

“To the future,” Mikey says.

Nate can drink to that.

 

*

 

When Nate gets home from a long day at work, having to deal with a crying lady and a headache, he sees Mikey standing in the doorway with a shiteating grin, his shoes strewn.

It’s even better the second time around.

**Author's Note:**

> im so sorry! completely slipped my mind and here are some trigger warnings  
> head trauma  
> amnesia/ish  
> feel free to lmk if i'm missing anything :)  
> untagged characters  
> Owen Tippett  
> Dingle Strobe  
> Stephen Gibson  
> Congle McDongle  
> Maddie Bastian is a real person drk if she's Nate's sis or not bc he follows her on ig but she's priv so for the sake of this fic she is thank you guten tag


End file.
